Kevin Montgomery
February 19th -1954 Buddy Holly, Bob Montgomery and Larry Welbom win a competition at Lubbock high School
They performed a song Bob wrote, “Flower Of My Heart”, and song is chosen as the schools Senior Class Song.
Kevin’s father, Bob Montgomery was Buddy’ Holly’s earliest songwriter partner, the pair having met at junior high school in 1949 and performing together both on stage and for radio shows, the two teenagers having their own series on KDAV. There was interest in Buddy as a solo performer so Bob concentrated on songwriting, penning such classics for Buddy as Heartbeat, Wishing, Down the Line and Love’s Made a Fool of You. The two of them had already made an album as Buddy and Bob which came out in 1965 as Holly in the Hills and featured Wishing, Flower of My Heart and Got to Get You near Me Blues.
Dorothy Moore’s 1976 version of Bob’s Misty Blue was ‘Most performed Song of the Year’ and sold some four million copies.
Even in the 1970s Bob was still working with the Crickets, producing their 1973 album Remnants, and their 1974 album, A Long Way from Lubbock. Kevin’s mother sang on Elvis’ In the Ghetto, Kentucky Rain and Suspicious Minds. Bob later produced Bobby Goldsboro’s 1968 No.1 Honey and the follow-up, Summer (the First Time)
Kevin Montgomery grew up in Nashville, surrounded by music as well as busking in New York. the made his album debut in 1993 with Fear Nothing, fronted shows for such artists as Cheryl Crow and David Crosby and featured on many compilations, including duetting with Mary Chapin Carpenter on the Buddy tribute album Not Fade Away. He collaborated with several artists including Lee Ann Womack and Rodney Crowell as well as his songs being covered by Juice Newton and Martina McBride.
In 2000, Paul McCartney having been impressed with Kevin’s latest songs, he was invited by Paul to perform with his band at the Buddy Holly Week in 2000 at London’s Mermaid Theatre. The following year Kevin recorded the album Kevin Montgomery Live at Nashville’s legendary Bluebird Café, releasing the EP Paint the same year featuring a duet with Trisha Yearwood. The song was chosen by the BBC as their lead-in to the CMA Awards. In 2003 Kevin released, Another Long Story, with his next album, 2.30 am, coming out the following year. The album Live from Glasgow by Kevin Montgomery and the Roadtrippers came out in 2005
Kevin recorded a version of his father’s song Back in Baby’s Arms, on his 2008 album, True, the song having been covered in the 1960s by Patsy Cline.
Kevin continues to tour and record and in 2018 unveiled a blue plaque to Buddy and the Crickets at what was, at the time of Buddy’s tour in 1958, the Gaumont, Salisbury.
Kevin’s guitar is Flower of My Heart, a song from the 1965 album Holly in the Hills which features early material from the pre-Crickets era of Buddy Holly and Bob Montgomery, the latter co-writing the song. Most apposite then that Kevin should receive Flower of My Heart.
